Jana Kramer on wine, marriage therapy, and mommy shaming

Jana Kramer is a big fan of wine. So much so that she’s not afraid to drink it with anything and everything. The country songstress recently Instagrammed a photo of her mac-and-cheese dinner and a glass of red sitting elegantly next to it on her marble countertop.

“This is mom life,” she tells Yahoo Style. “You can drink wine with everything! Even scrambled eggs!” The singer, who recently signed on as an ambassador for female-run Little Black Dress Wines, even went so far as to admit that she’s drank her “mommy juice” with Cheerios. “It was a straight up ‘my child wouldn’t eat any other food I made her so I gave in and gave her Cheerios’ moment,” she says. “And I ate some myself because what I made didn’t actually taste that good.”

Having her daughter, Jolie, was an eye-opening experience for Kramer. “Once I became a mom, I learned there is this whole world of mommy shamers,” she says. “I was like, what the heck? Why aren’t women helping each other? Why aren’t there moms being like ‘Hey, you are doing a great job’ and giving each other support. That’s something we all need.”

Jana Kramer and her Dress for Success client Keisha Wilson backstage at a recent LBD Wines meet and greet in Chicago. (Photo: Jeff Schear/Getty Images for Dress for Success)

Kramer herself has been hit with her share of parenting criticism. After posting a shot of baby food in Instagram last year, the singer faced an onslaught of unwelcome comments.

“I remember getting baby food at the store and all the moms were like, ‘You’re a bad mom. You should be making her food,’” she says. “And I was like, ‘Dude, I am doing the best I can. And it is OK that I am buying her organic food right now from the grocery store.’”

She was also guilted over feeding her daughter formula in lieu of breast milk. “I wasn’t able to breastfeed because my milk never came in and it was like I was poisoning my child with formula,” she says. “I was raised on formula and I turned out semi-OK. It’s just crazy to me how people have so many opinions when they are not her mom. I block it out now, but it’s still kind of frustrating to me.”

“We’re not divorced, he’s not my estranged husband [and] he’s very much in my life,” Kramer told People in September. “Legally, he is my husband. I have a ring on my finger. It’s hard, every day — some days I’m like, ‘I can’t do this.’ … But other days I’m like, ‘No, fight for it.”

The resilient 33-year-old admits that the time she’s been putting in has been incredibly helpful. “I’ve always run from things when they got hard,” she tells Yahoo Style. “What I’ve learned in this is sometimes when you stick it out, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It helps you grow as a person and I’ve just grown a lot with patience and learning things about myself. If you really sit in the trenches and have bombs going off around you, you really learn a lot about yourself and how you get through certain things.”

Her current battle? Dressing her daughter. “It’s been a blast, but it’s also a challenge now because she’s very opinionated,” Kramer says, with a laugh. “It’s been a game of I want these on her head and she doesn’t. So I’m just letting her be her.” Their latest discussion is over Jolie’s upcoming Halloween costume and so far it’s been narrowed down to “something Disney.”

“Her personality is really starting to come through and I’m in big trouble,” jokes the “Why Ya Wanna” singer of life with her almost 2-year-old.